"Big city players? Oh, yes, there are betting tables outside the venue... Um... Come on, do you know the situation of the contestants now?"
Shade asked absentmindedly, feeling as if someone was looking at him from behind. Of course, this was a complete illusion, as the two professors sat down in the corner and talked in low voices, not noticing the "stranger" with his back to them.
Xia De carefully took a sip of the strange drink in the cup.
"Not yet, but I heard that a holder of the founding series of Rhodes cards actually showed up this time."
“Ahem~”
Xia De coughed and waved his hand to indicate that he was fine:
"That's great. The newspaper should record the key game information."
He spoke quietly, trying to keep his presence as low as possible, planning to get up and leave after a while. Otherwise, it would seem very strange if he left right after the professors came in.
"I don't have the chance to go to Tobesk City. Even if I had the chance, I couldn't get a ticket to watch the poker players play live. When it was held in Coldwater Harbor 21 years ago, the ticket price was equivalent to several months' salary of mine. It will only be more expensive now."
The bartender shook his head with regret, then nodded in the direction of Aurora Manor and said while wiping the cup:
"Sometimes I really envy rich people. Do you know how many gold pounds that manor was sold for twenty years ago?"
"How much? You know all this?"
Shade asked in surprise.
"This number... I worked in this pub 20 years ago and heard it from the owner at that time."
The bartender dipped his finger in some water and wrote a few numbers on the wooden board of the counter. Shade raised his eyebrows and calculated the prices and purchasing power of money 20 years ago. If he could prove that the house in St. Teresa Square was not haunted, then the price of Aurora Manor would be only slightly more expensive than a house in St. Teresa Square.
"That is to say, if I sell 6 St. Teresa's Square and add some money, I can buy a manor with a beach, courtyard, and garden in a place like Coldwater Harbor."
My mood suddenly became high. Even if I didn't sell it, knowing what I had would make the owner of the house happy.
"Speaking of this manor, it was here when my father was still a child. The history of the manor is no shorter than those old streets in the southern city."
The bartender continued.
"Isn't that hundreds of years?"
Shade asked, then turned sideways and risked a glance, and sure enough, the professors didn't pay any attention to him.
"I can't tell you the details, but I know that the original owner of the manor was a wealthy local businessman thirty years ago. He had special connections that allowed him to obtain jewels from shipwrecks or pearls from the bottom of the sea and sell them. Then one day, the wealthy businessman disappeared, and the mansion was mortgaged and sold."
The bartender shook his head and wiped the glass in his hands, as if lamenting the impermanence of life:
"But it used to be very gloomy. Don't be fooled by its bright appearance now. When I was young, the whole house was like an underground cave that had been soaked in water for a long time. Every night, you could even hear the wind passing through the windows without glass, making strange noises."
The more Xia De listened, the more he felt something was wrong, and his sense of unease gradually grew.
He continued to chat with the bartender, and before Shad was about to leave, the two professors from St. Byron's actually stood up first, left the pub and went out into the rain.
Of course Xia De didn't dare to follow.
The time was 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday, and there were still about two hours before sunrise in Coldwater Harbor.
After sitting on the high stool at the counter for a few minutes and making sure that the professors would not come back, Xia De took the cup of strange-tasting drink and sat in the corner where the professors had just sat.
The bartender felt very sorry for not being able to sell those strange medicinal liquors to Xia De.
The professors did not leave anything here. After putting the cup down, Shad tried to use the echo of the past magic to try his luck.
But this was a pub, and people would be talking almost every moment of the 48 hours, so he didn't hold out much hope.
First attempt.
"Star 8, look at my 20 points!"
It seems that he is playing the Rhodes card.
Second attempt.
"Oh my Maya, my Maya..."
There was a man crying, probably his wife or daughter had passed away.
"Why did you abandon this family and leave me?"
Maybe it wasn't death, but the wife suddenly disappeared.
"I have raised you for three whole years. I have saved the money for your cat food until after 1856."
Shad didn't comment, but tried a third time.
"So, Mafar, it's a pity that we didn't invite professors from the School of History to come with us this time."
Xia De was startled. This was Professor Sanchez's voice. And from what he heard, it was indeed the professors of St. Byron's talking in low voices.
"When did I get this lucky?"
He wondered in his heart, but continued to listen.
"Oh, Professor Sanchez, who would have thought that something like this would happen here?"
The middle-aged professor called "Mafar" sighed:
"Who would have thought that the manor was actually one of the ritual nodes of the Sea Return Ceremony? The Scarlet Cult spent a lot of money and used the relic no-entry sign. Now people outside can't get in, and people inside can't get out. If there is a professor from the School of History here, I think he can probably find a way to let at least one of us in from a spatial perspective."
The surprised expression on Xia De's face could no longer be suppressed.
"The manor itself has problems. These days we have been investigating the direction of the cult's capital flow. Preliminary investigations have proven that thirty years ago, the manor's owner cooperated with the Scarlet Cult to circulate funds for the cultists and the fish people. I think the mansion had already begun preparations for the 'sea return' at that time."
Professor Sanchez said, and then there was the sound of a cup being put down:
"We just checked there. With the current means, no one can get in for a few hours unless we mobilize the high-level sorcerers in charge of other nodes. But other nodes are equally important, and other places may also have problems with Lacey. But we don't have to worry too much. Didn't the Church of Nature say that they received news in advance that suspicious people appeared at the banquet, so there is a full team of sorcerers in the manor? That team sent news that the two sides are in a standoff, and neither has any plans to start a war again."
"That's pretty good..."
Professor Mafar hesitated for a moment, but immediately realized the problem:
"However, with the city short of people, how could the Church of Nature think of secretly mobilizing a whole team of ring sorcerers to ambush the banquet without telling us? They probably don't know that there is a ritual node under the Aurora family's manor, otherwise they would have solved it in advance. Could it be that the Church of Nature has already found... the second person..."